Arrived in LA late to find that either I, or the hostel hadn't booked a bed for Joey, however what could have been a complete nightmare of an evening turned out to be really cool as they upgraded us from dorms to a private room for no extra cost, result! We went off into LA to visit Hollywood bright and early the next morning, we had decided that ti save money we would get the local bus instead of a tourist bus, it was very amusing, everyone talks to you and are really helpful with directions for us when we were unsure of where to go, can you imagine that in London?!

Hollywood is how you imagine, tacky but something that needs to be done once (or twice in my case :) ) We walked along the walk of fame spotting the people we like as we go and ended up at the chinese theatre and put our hands in a few of the handprints outside. Joey and I decided that it would only be appropriate to go on a tacky Hollywood homes tour into the hills, we went past Jennifer Lopez house, Travolta, Matt Damon etc and the playboy bunny mansion, all of the houses are absolutely huge and have such stunning views!! Luckily we didn't have too much time in LA as we were off to San Francisco the next day.

After making the sensible decision to fly the 45 minutes to San Francisco instead of braving the 8 hour greyhound we arrived and immediately went into the centre for some lunch before heading onto the Golden Gate bridge. Unfortunately there was a lot of typical San Franciscan weather around and we could only see half the bridge! We took in the views, well those that we could see and after walking around a little longer we headed towards our accommodation for the next two nights! The accommodation was nice and had lovely views over the bay. After going along to see the Sea Lions at Fisherman's Wharf we had dinner at a lovely italian restaurant, I had the most gorgeous snapper and some Napa valley wine, well you have to do something for the local economy!

After awaking bright and early the next day we wandered over to pickup our bikes that we would be riding that day along the streets of San Francisco and over the bridge. It was tremendously hard work! Those hills are not kind to cyclists! The bridge was covered in mist once more but we made the best of it and got some cool shots regardless. We returned by ferry and it was then time for Alcatraz! The guided audio tour was really well put together and took us around the prison telling us all about past inmates and things that happened there over the years.

After returning the bikes we got in a cable car up to China Town for dinner. You are pretty spoilt for choice in San Francisco for Chinese food as they have such a high population of Chinese people living there, we found one on a steep hill and decided to go in and had some wonderful food with a great view of San Francisco behind us. The final day in San Francisco was spent in the Height Ashbury district where the hippy flower power is still in full swing from there we went Golden Gate bridge park and viewed the botanical gardens before heading to the airport to return to LA for a chilled out day before heading onto New Zealand! Sooo exciting!